Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist is the definitive guide to venture financings. This book is for anyone who wants the insider's guide to raising money, negotiating deals, and to know what really makes venture capitalists tick. Don't believe us? Check out these recommendations:

Feld and Mendelson pack a graduate level course into this energetic and accessible book. The authors. frank style and incisive insight make this a .must read. for high-growth company entrepreneurs, early stage investors, and graduate students. Start here if you want to understand venture capital deal structure and strategies. I enthusiastically recommend. - Brad Bernthal, CU Boulder, Associate Clinical Professor of Law - Technology Policy, Entrepreneurial Law In my entrepreneurship class at Stanford, the number one topic is venture financing -- how it works and how (or even whether) to get it. There are no two better people to coach an entrepreneur through the venture process than Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson, and next to in-person guidance this book is the next best thing. I am planning to make this required reading for my class at Stanford. - Heidi Roizen, Fenwick and West Entrepreneurship Educator, Stanford University Technology Ventures Program I would highly recommend .Venture Deals. to any entrepreneur, venture capitalist, student, or casual reader who wants to get the .true scoop. on how venture deals come together and what the venture capital landscape truly looks like. The authors are not only veterans of the industry, but are willing to share their unvarnished views of what venture is all about. The reader will not find the insights shared here anywhere else. And, perhaps best of all, the authors write in an easily readable, casual style that makes the book quite fun to read. - Craig Dauchy, Cooley LLP Venture Deals is a must read for any entrepreneur contemplating or currently leading a venture-backed company. Brad and Jason are highly respected investors who shoot straight from the hip and tell it like it is, bringing a level of transparency to a process that is rarely well understood. Its like having a venture capitalist as a best friend who is looking out for your best interest and happy to answer all of your questions. - Emily Mendell, Vice President of Communications, National Venture Capital Association I've been reading and loving Brad Feld's blog for years. He's one of my favorite venture capitalists on the planet. I'm delighted Brad and Jason have written the definitive book for entrepreneurs seeking to learn about raising and going through the venture capital process. - Bijan Sabet, Spark Capital The adventure of starting and growing a company can exhilarating or excruciating.or both. Feld and Mendelson have done a masterful job of shedding light on what can either become one of the most helpful or dreadful experiences for entrepreneurs.accepting venture capital into their firm. This book takes the lid off the black box and helps entrepreneurs understand the economics and control provisions of working with a venture partner. - Lesa Mitchell, Vice President, Advancing Innovation, Kauffman Foundation My biggest nightmare is taking advantage of an entrepreneur without even realizing it. It happens because VCs are experts in financings and most entrepreneurs are not. Brad and Jason are out to fix that problem with Venture Deals. This book is long overdue and badly needed. - Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures A must-read book for entrepreneurs. Brad and Jason demystify the overly complex world of term sheets and M&A, cutting through the legalese and focusing on what really matters. That.s a good thing not just for entrepreneurs, but also for venture capitalists, angels and lawyers. Having an educated entrepreneur on the other side of the table means you spend your time negotiating the important issues and ultimately get to the right deal faster. - Greg Gottesman, Managing Director, Madrona Venture Group

Fred Wilson (USV) and Joanne Wilson (Gotham Gal) have the two best posts up today. Each one involved another person.

Fred’s post - The Management Team – Guest Post By Jerry Colonna – is by – wait for it – Jerry Colonna. If you don’t know Jerry, you are missing out. Jerry was Fred’s partner at Flatiron Partners and an amazing VC in the 1990′s. I had the joy of being on several boards with Jerry and can’t think of anyone I’ve ever worked with who understands people better. Jerry’s post wraps up Fred’s MBA Monday series on the management team and is a dynamite finish to an excellent post.

Not to be outdone, Joanne Wilson has a great post up titled Caren Maio, Nest.io, Woman Entrepreneur. It’s part of Joanne’s Women Entrepreneur Monday’s series and highlights Caren Maio, CEO of Nest.io, and a member of the first TechStars New York program. Caren is spectacular and Joanne does a nice job of explaining Nest.io while shining a bright light on the awesomeness that is Caren.

In 2008 my partner Seth Levine wrote what I think is the definitive post about how to get a job in venture capital. His post followed an insightful earlier post of his that he wrote in 2005 titled how to become a venture capitalist. Each post is required reading for anyone interested in a job at a venture capital firm.

I get asked this question at least twice a week and use Yesware to send out an automated answer that includes a link to Seth’s post. Today, I noticed a new post from Alex Taussig (Highland Capital Partners) titled 3 ways to land a job in VC. It’s a good addition to the two posts that Seth previously wrote.

I always notice that the number of inquiries I get for jobs at Foundry Group increases in February and March as all the second year business school students in the US start looking for a gig. My advice – read the three posts and start your search a lot earlier.

Today’s VC Post of the Day is from Ahmed Takatkah, a VC in Jordan titled The Next Big Thing in VC. He starts with a question and the answer he often gets.

“What’s the next big thing in VC?” Whenever I see a VC from the states or even from the region, I ask this question, but none of them gave me a satisfying answer. I will share my answer here and hope that this will stimulate others to comment with different point of view.”

He starts by explaining what he thinks has been happening: Faster Exits, Active Private Capital Markets, The Rise of Accelerators, and Changes in the VC Model and then goes on to predict (and explain) a few new ideas of what might happen: Elevators, Carry Options for Entrepreneurs, Capture Capital, and Cafe Startups.

It’s good stuff and worth reading if you wonder what “the next big thing is VC” is.

I get asked this question many times in many different ways. Sometimes people are coy about it (“someone is expressing strategic interest – what should I do?”) other times people are clear and direct (“someone wants to acquire my company – help!”).

David Cohen, the CEO of TechStars, has encountered this many times. Before starting TechStars, he was an entrepreneur who sold his company to a public company after running it with a partner for a decade. He then started a few more companies, including one that failed and one that was acquired. Finally, he started TechStars and of the 28 companies from the first three programs (there have now been 126 companies that have gone through the program to date) 8 have been acquired. He’s also invested in a number of companies as an angel investor and I know of at least a half dozen that have been acquired.

He’s got awesome advice in a blog post titled You have acquisition interest – now what? His 10 step process is:

1. Assess the acquirer
2. Notify the board
3. Set your number
4. Engage the acquirer
5. Ask for the ballpark offer
6. Identify mentors
7. Assess the ballpark offer
8. Get to know them and answer their questions.
9. Push for a term sheet
10. Decide

Go read the post now. It’s excellent and I plan to refer people to it often whenever this question comes up.

Today’s VC post of the day is from Albert Wenger (USV) and titled Presenting Option Grants to Boards. This is feedback I give to CEOs 98% of the time after my first board meeting. While there is no standard for how to present option grants, Albert lays out a very clear set of eight pieces of data he likes to see. The first four are the the columns in the spreadsheet and each employee / option grant are the rows. The next two are footnotes for options grants that aren’t standard. And the last two are contextual data that should always be included since board members are on multiple boards and won’t remember this from company to company.

Here’s are the eight pieces of data – go read the post for more details on why all eight are necessary.

Spreadsheet data:

• Employee name
• Title/role at company
• Absolute size of grant in number of underlying shares
• Percentage size of grant fully diluted

Footnotes data (for option grants that aren’t standard)

• Special vesting considerations that differ from the plan
• For refresh grants: how many options does the employee already have and how far are those vested?

Context data

• Total size of option pool and remaining available pool (absolute numbers and percentages fully diluted)
• Grant size bands by role (if you have established those already) — if not, include existing employees in similar roles for comparison (including their start dates)

Today’s post of the day is from Mark MacLeod (Real Ventures) titled The Model Board Package. Mark shares my intense frustration with the structure of most board meetings and offers up some great suggestions along with a solid template for a board presentation. As some of you may know, I’m working on a book on Startup Boards with Mahendra Ramsinghani - if this is a topic that is interesting to you do us a favor and fill out our survey on startup boards.

Today’s VC post is from Roger Ehrenberg (IA Ventures) titled Letting Go. Roger makes a strong set of points about how a founder/CEO needs to learn how to let go. I have a specific nuance that I see often where I think VCs regularly screw up that I bring up in the comments. I’d encourage you to go take a look and weigh in on the comments – this is a good and important one.

There are two runner up posts - Primum Non Nocere from Fred Wilson (USV) and How to Create an Early-Stage Pitch Deck from Ryan Spoon (Polaris). Both good extra food for thought on this wild card weekend.

Question: What does a VC mean when he says your product is “a feature and not a company”?

This (usually) means that the VC believes the opportunity you are pursuing isn’t a big enough opportunity for them to invest in.  In other words, what you are building should be a feature to something else already out there, instead of a stand-alone company that will generate the type of returns that the VC is looking for.  For instance, assume you are building something that fits inside an email client that does X.  (Perhaps “X” translates languages).  While super helpful to some folks, a VC may take the postion that this should be a feature or tool within the email client, but not an opportunity to build a large company with paying customers around it.  Of course, we can debate whether this is a correct statement, but in the eye of the VC this is how it is.

One thing always to consider with VC feedback to your company, however, is whether or not you are getting transparent and honest feedback.  In our experience, few VCs actually give feedback like this, so always have your skeptic brain alert.  One never knows what the real reason for investing might be.  Perhaps the VC is out of money and can’t even make an investment, but doesn’t want to admit that and thus the feedback.  This is just a general comment and not one particular to your question.

Fred Wilson (USV) has today’s VC Post of the day titled Herky Jerky Investing. In it he refers to a WSJ article where several very prominent VCs have recently said they are backing off investing at frothy valuations and now going and looking off the beaten path.

Fred – as usual – has very a very focused reaction to this:

“I am not a fan of this start and stop style of investing. Nobody can time markets. You can’t deliver great returns to your investors by being a momentum investor during some periods and a value investor in others.

I believe the only way to be a top performing investor in any asset class is to have a disciplined investment strategy and approach and apply it consistently and actively in all markets all the time.”

I (Brad) strongly agree and weighed in with my own comment with a cynical view:

“I had the same reaction to the WSJ article. Actually, I had a stronger reaction: “what a load of bullshit – why does the WSJ publish stuff like this and why do VCs say things like this?”

The only thing I could come up with is that it’s actually a head fake from the people saying it with the goal of getting some of their fast followers – VCs who are investing with them, competing with them on “hot deals”, and driving prices up to “slow down and blink” so there’s less competition.”

The comment thread on Fred’s post is very interesting – I encourage you to go take a look and form your own opinion.

There’s a beautiful post up today by Charlie O’Donnell (First Round) titled The Race is Long. It starts out:

“Jordan Williamson, the Stanford kicker who missed three field goals in the Fiesta Bowl, will wake up today and feel like crap. Tomorrow, he’ll wake up and still feel like crap, but a little less… and a little less the day after that, and less the day after that.

His Stanford e-mail is undoubtedly filled with two things… love and hate. If there ever was a moment in someone’s life where you get to find out who your real friends are, this will be it.”

As we start a new year, Charlie riffs nicely on important lessons that come out of a failure. Powerful stuff – and a great way to start the day.